5/08/2017

Mr. Brown was probably trying to make the point that video games are
held to a different, higher standard than books. That is true, but it
brings to mind the fact that “All Quiet,” both as a book and as a film,
was quite important in helping to undemonize Germany in the interwar
period. “All Quiet” helped establish the idea among Americans that the
Germans were an essentially honorable foe and that all men at arms
ultimately have more in common than politicians would have us believe.

Just days after the first Democratic presidential debate, Bernie Sanders visited Real Time With Bill Maher Friday, where the host, a Sanders supporter, hoped to "un-demonize" the word "socialist," a term that scares off 53-percent of voters.

French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen’s
success in the first round of elections was widely attributed to her
hard-fought effort to “detoxify” her far-right National Front party of
the anti-Semitism that marked its past, and to root out Holocaust
minimizers from its leadership. There was even a French word coined for
the effort, dédiabolisation — literally, “undemonization.”

In the end Ms. Le Pen failed to “undemonize,” spectacularly.
She failed during the course of the campaign, when her angry rallies
drew the Front inexorably back into the swamp from which it had emerged.
And then she failed decisively in one of the campaign’s critical
moments, last week’s debate with Mr. Macron, when she effectively
“redemonized” herself and the party, as many French commentators noted.